Rev. Edward J. McCarthy, 84, Ex-President of 3 Colleges, Dies

The Rev. Edward James McCarthy, an Augustinian friar who was president of three colleges and was briefly held in a Cuban lockup during five decades in higher education, died on Monday at St. Thomas Monastery, a residence on the campus of Villanova University in Villanova, Pa. He was 84 and until last month resided at the Augustinian Monastery at St. Thomas University in Miami.

The cause was respiratory failure, according to St. Thomas University, the Archdiocesan Catholic University of Florida, which he served as interim president in 1993-94.

Father McCarthy was born in Troy, N.Y., and graduated in philosophy in 1934 from what was then Villanova College. He studied theology at Augustinian College in Washington and earned a Ph.D. in history across the street at Catholic University in 1939. He was ordained a priest in 1937.

He held a number of positions at Villanova before his order posted him to Cuba in 1946 when it established the Universidad de Santo Tomas de Villanueva in Havana. He returned to Villanova two years later as dean of arts and sciences.

It was back to Havana in 1957 as vice president of academic affairs until the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961. The Cuban Government padlocked Villanueva, and Father McCarthy was taken away at gunpoint.

When he arrived in Miami, the archdiocese there asked him to establish Biscayne College, and he was its president from 1961 to 1968. The college added a graduate program and law school and became St. Thomas University in 1984.

Father McCarthy was president of Villanova from 1971 to 1975. At his death he was president emeritus of St. Thomas and a university trustee. He previously served as chairman of the Villanova board.

He is survived by two sisters, Kathleen Warnock of Troy and Mildred Riely of Naples, Fla.